Blog Banter 26: Beauty In A Bottle

Welcome to the twenty-sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic was proposed by @KatiaSae of the much praised “To Boldly Go” blog. Katia asks: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As an astrophotographer, I’ve found it in the stars and planets of New Eden. Where have you found it? Perhaps you’ve found beauty in the ships we fly? Maybe it’s the sight of profits being added to your bottom line? Or maybe it’s the pilot portraits you see in the comm channels? Where ever you’ve found it, write about it and post an image.” Don’t be afraid go beyond the simple visual aspects of EVE as well. Is the EVE Community in itself a thing of beauty? What makes EVE the game, the world, the Community, so appealing to you?

In 2004, I was sitting in my college apartment trying my best to avoid working on a paper about child healthcare in Nepal. I had logged into WoW with hopes of grinding my way to level 11, but was instantly tired of the cartoonish environment and flippish attitude. The colors, sounds, and voices all blended together into one generic visual and audible white noise. I flipped over to my iTunes with hopes of garnering some level of excitement from a new artist I was listening to named Burial. (Just a quick note about Burial: His debut album was groundbreaking for me. I lived in downtown Indianapolis at the time and fell in love with the sounds of the city at night. I heard police sirens, honking horns, the steady monotony of car engines, the occasional conversation of drunk college students, and when all this was silent; the quiet breathing of the city. Burial’s self-titled album was a work of the city. It has halting, jerking beats coming in sparse waves and the occasional indistinguishable vocal line. In all its a work of loneliness, of solitude, of introspection.) As I switched him on, I jumped onto TenTonHammer to look at some WoW news, when I just started looking at other MMO’s that I could play on my mac (which was very few). I clicked on this Eve thing and was immediately greeted with some absolutely stark and gorgeous screenshots. I think that the music, the time of night, and the loneliness of the screenshots all appealed to me. It was one of those moments where everything lined up to create a very singular experience. My reaction was to immediately subscribe to the game and I played for a few months before succumbing to the cliff learning curve.

Fast forward a couple of years later to June of 2010: I’ve started a new account with a fresh character, I’ve met some people in game and joined a corporation, and finally moved on to Eve University. We’ve just been hit with a big wardec and the mighty gears of the Ivy League Navy take over the Uni. I was running around in a Stabber and had just started to get curious about PvP so I joined a fleet that was going on a roam. Shortly after jumping into an adjacent system to Aldrat, the FC called out “Align to Altrinur” followed by “Ninja Warp!” and some fleet members responded with hoots and laughing. I was confused at first until I saw the warp initiated message on my screen. I had no idea what an FC could fleet warp! Once all the ships were in warp, I sat in awe of the beautiful dance. Each ship was united in movement with the occasional ebb and flow of space slipping around the bottle-shaped warp space. That moment has stuck with me ever since and to a degree, my entire Eve experience now revolves around that slow dance of ships, moving in a united direction with one purpose, one goal. That it the beauty of this silly game of internet spaceships.

I couldn’t agree more on WoW, lol. It just never appealed to me with its cartoony looks. You know, that dance of the ships as they deal death is something I’ve yet to experience in EVE. Maybe one day after I finish my goal, yea right, I’ll have to give it a go. Thanks for taking time to participate in this month’s blog banter.🙂